430; Guizot, I.153.] There was one fatal absurdity in the position of the Restored Rump Government.

It came together in the name of "the good old cause," or a pure and absolute Republic; and yet it stood there itself in glaring contradiction to what is usually regarded, and to what itself put forth, as the very root-principle of a pure Republic--to wit, the Sovereignty of the People.

Richard's House of Commons had been as freely elected as any House of Commons since that of the Long Parliament, and, as far as England and Wales were concerned, by the same constituencies; it represented no past mood of the community, but precisely their mood in January 1658-9; and the attendances in the House, when it did meet, were unusually numerous.

Well, in a series of debates and votes, in which there was no concussion, this Parliament had declared, in the main, for a continuation of the Protectorate and the Protectoral Constitution as settled by Oliver's Second Parliament.

Hardly had this been done when, by a combination in London between the disappointed Republicans and the Army malcontents, the Parliament was abruptly dissolved.